Helsinki residents' eagerness to leave Lutheran Church above national average
Vicars express concern over lack of commitment among young adults
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the capital region is being forced to rethink its values and its economic situation, as more and more residents part ways with the church.
With the decreased funding through the church tax, the church should reorganise its functions and rethink what services it can offer to those who have left, some Helsinki vicars told Helsingin Sanomat.
Last year, nearly all of the Helsinki congregations lost more than one percent of their members. The national average was 0.8 percent. In Helsinki as a whole, 70.5 percent of people belonged to the Lutheran Church at the turn of the year. In the neighbouring cities of Espoo and Vantaa, the corresponding figures were 77% and 74.5% respectively.
In both Espoo and Vantaa, the percentage of the church leavers was also slightly above the national average.
Through internal migration and new births, the effects of members leaving the church were counterbalanced to a certain extent, but overall, the total number of church members still decreased both in Helsinki and Vantaa. In Espoo, the number of members increased slightly – despite the above-average rate of people leaving their parishes.
Belonging to the church varies greatly from parish to parish in Helsinki. In Pakila and Munkkiniemi, over 80 percent of people are members of the Lutheran Church. In the parish of Paavali, in the eastern part of the central area, the membership percentage of 62.4 is the lowest in the entire country.
In the Matteus congregation area in eastern Helsinki, 81.5 percent of the district’s Swedish-speaking residents belong to the parish. As a whole, the Swedish-speaking Helsinki residents seem to be more faithful church members than do their Finnish-speaking neighbours.
The membership figures of the Helsinki congregations have been exhibiting a downward trend for the past three years.
Director Pekka Hietanen from the Parish Union of Helsinki agrees that this is inevitably reflected in the congregations' economic position.
"We have to cut down on personnel expenses. This will happen naturally, through retirement. No-one is going to get laid off", Hietanen notes.
Hietanen also believes that the present trend of people leaving the church will eventually stop.
"We have faith that through our activities we can prove to people that it is worthwhile to belong to the church", states Hietanen.
The church’s greatest challenge are young adults, many of them individualists, who consider the church an institution that has little to offer to them.
"Our challenge is to show them that belonging to church is not just about what personal benefit one can get out of it", points out vicar Jorma Parviainen of the Paavali Parish.
Parviainen recalls how in the early 1990s the church's loss of members was minimal, when the church laid emphasis on taking care of the underprivileged.
The established food bank and debt counselling services made people feel that the church was doing something concrete and meaningful.
Previously in HS International Edition:
More Finns leave Lutheran Church in 2005 than ever before (22.2.2006)
Links:
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 6.3.2006 - TODAY |
Helsinki residents' eagerness to leave Lutheran Church above national average
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